The Friendly Invasion

Fourth Doctor Adventures #12.4

Released: 21 June 2023

Listened: 7/21/23

This one is a reasonably nice historical. It’s Westbourne, England, 1943, the middle of WWII. There are a bunch of American troops stationed in the town: Dainty company, who will soon leave for deployment and play a critical role in the invasion of Normandy. Their presence is causing some friction with the locals, but that’s not really the problem. There’s another temporal anomaly here, and it’s pulled the TARDIS off-course. Turns out there’s some time-tourists here from the 51st century, inhabiting other people’s bodies. And since 51st-century time travel tech is rubbish (ask Magnus Greel), things are going sideways. It ends up with a big scene of zombie villagers with flaming hands attacking an old pub defended by Leela and a bunch of Americans. It’s certainly fun to watch her order around the “Dainty men,” as she calls them. Margaret, meanwhile, faces the fact that she’s alive in this time, if a teenage girl. She’s not very good at keeping her future knowledge hidden, but it mostly turns out all right. So it’s a nice mix of adventure, character-building, and drama, along with some rather decent American accents for a change.